


No Way Out

by d_aia



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen, Minor Character Death, POV Dick Grayson, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 16:58:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d_aia/pseuds/d_aia
Summary: It’s almost dawn. The city is as peaceful as it gets, preparing for a new day. Earlier they had to deal with Black Mask’s dealers moving in on Red Hood’s territory, but the whole thing ended before they got there. Unsurprisingly, Jay’s people won and they apparently did without him. He must have been busy with something else, which could be bad, good, or both.“Nightwing, there’s an explosion at the Gotham harbor,” Babs reports. “Sending you the coordinates… now.”*Dick's week is about to be derailed.





	No Way Out

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Graphic Violence, Minor Character Death (Joker dies, but he's not the only one), Unreliable Narrator (among others, Dick feels very guilty and some of it is deserved but not nearly all). 
> 
> Thanks & Acknowledgements: I am grateful to [chibi_luna_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_luna_chan/) for indulging me and answering all my specific and/or weird questions. And to [Korkyra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Korkyra/), for the support :D. Thank you!
> 
> This takes place a few years after the events of Under the Red Hood. Jay is a big name in the Gotham criminal world, Damian has shown up in the meantime, and the Bats are working from Gotham. If you're okay with that, enjoy!

It’s almost dawn. The city is as peaceful as it gets, preparing for a new day. Earlier they had to deal with Black Mask’s dealers moving in on Red Hood’s territory, but the whole thing ended before they got there. Unsurprisingly, Jay’s people won and they apparently did without him. He must have been busy with something else, which could be bad, good, or both.

A problem for another day, Dick decides. He stretches and thinks about calling it a night. In less than two hours, the Gotham Elite will, for once, wake up early and come to Dick to complain.

_“Nightwing, there’s an explosion at the Gotham harbor,”_ Babs reports. _“Sending you the coordinates… now.”_

“Got them. I’m on it,” Dick says and jumps.

About half a year ago, Dick had noticed the new faces, but other than a few arrests for solicitation there had been nothing on them. Timmy agreed and they stayed away. It soon became obvious that they were dealers. Only, they did not sell to anyone under twenty-one, which was a very Red Hood thing to do. It meant Hood’s dealers had at one point stepped up and entered their world.

The Gotham Elite was up in arms.

How dare this peasant place his people among decent people? How dare he look past his station in life? They always said that new money would bring the bad element.

In short, the new faces that everybody had hurried to embrace were suddenly shunned. The fact that they were in that position because they refused to deal to minors was never brought up. No, they were intruding. They didn’t belong. 

However, nobody dared to say word one when it became obvious—after repeated failed attempts by the Bats, the police, and other gangs to catch him—that Red Hood was fast becoming a staple of Gotham life and was not to be messed with. There were, for a time, moues of disgust when they got their samples in red baggies. They still got them, though.

After all, Red Hood didn’t sell to children, but he had the safest product.

_“Red Robin will join you,”_ Babs says.

Dick smiles, feeling the night air pass him by. He loves to fly. “Thanks, Babs.”

Then the greats began to fall. Jay’s dealers weren’t the ones to introduce Gotham’s Elite to drugs; they were only the ones to not sell to minors. No, the Gotham Elite bought from the Gotham Elite, naturally.

For about two-three months now, Jay had had enough of the old dealers—or, more importantly, of whom they sold to—and suddenly they were found by the police with a lot of product. They got out of it, of course. The charges were dropped, a general sense of ‘nothing to see here’, but it was gauche to be caught. Plus, when their choice was either to rail against the person who takes heads off as a legitimate negotiation argument or to keep getting carted off to the police station, most of them chose to bow out.

There was never any doubt about who the mysterious tipper was.

The Gotham Elite is currently begging for Richie Wayne’s attention because he’s the only one who can, by proximity, erase the shame they have suffered. If a Wayne still pays attention to them, they are not irrelevant. That’s all that matters.

Meanwhile, the drugs continue to flow, everybody shuts up about the new dealers and treats them with respect, and Dick is one step away from laughing hysterically because the one who started this is none other than his brother, a Wayne in his own right.

“Any signs of life?” Dick asks.

Babs hums. _“Searching now.”_

Maybe he and Timmy should have said something to Bruce, but he and Dami had his hands full with a Blackgate breakout that left Killer Croc at large, and complaining about Jay only made everybody sad.

Also, Dami being reported as an abused minor was turning into a whole thing. Vale got her hands on a source and reported it because she was pissed at Bruce. She had heard that Dami was Bruce’s biological son and somehow, that ticked her off enough to actually spend a prime-time hour throwing shit on Gotham’s playboy darling.

It made Dick question the kind of lies Bruce had been telling her when they were together.

After that, the situation got out of control. Somebody got their hands on Damian’s medical records and the break wasn’t in them. More sources appeared out of the woodwork. Then the break was in the records, but put in by a fake doctor. Bruce couldn’t get a real one with the media pressure, nobody was willing to lie for him, and he didn’t want to ask for help from the League. Needless to say, somebody found out that the doctor didn’t exist.

There were sources that said Timmy, Jason, and, even Dick had had a lot of injuries and sick days. A few of them were extremely credible, having pictures and other documentation, like Jason’s test from when he had to write with his left hand, having sprained his right. Maybe they were abused too.

There had been insinuations that Bruce was responsible for Jason’s death and that’s when the League cut that line of questioning right off.

But when Bruce finally took Dami to a real Gotham doctor, it was obvious that the break was a spiral fracture. Dami could only have gotten it if somebody or something twisted his arm. With all the hiding and the ducking that Bruce’s paranoia led to, it was a clear case of abuse. People went crazy.

_“No,”_ Babs says. _“No signs of life detected.”_

It is too late for denials or other explanations and people are calling for Bruce’s blood. The Gotham Elite is on the fence regarding him but the regular people are enraged. Tim says it’s starting to affect sales.

Dick is oddly exempt from that. So is Timmy. The world is still debating if they helped or not, but the Gotham Elite is a whole nother animal. It would certainly be a silver lining for Timmy and Dick, who have to deal with an increasingly invasive media, so, at least, they could use a break from the high-society with their fake smiles and even faker words.

But no. Apparently, the first source, who is Damian’s teacher—and not one of Batman’s rogues as Bruce thought—was assured that Red Hood would keep them safe from Bruce’s retribution. That made the upper echelon, who wanted to get into Jay’s good graces, suddenly decide that they would turn their attentions to Timmy and him.

Bruce had to resign, Timmy is actually running the company, and Dick regrets having mentioned Dami as Robin in Bruce’s presence.

_“They were.”_ Babs is sad, but they both know that’s nothing new in Gotham. _“Two of them.”_

Dick regrets that for more than the abuse allegations. It’s true, Dami had been lost and angry, and Dick saw Jason in him, but Dick didn’t spare a thought to Timmy or his feelings. Considering how Dick felt at being summarily replaced, how he acted, and towards whom, he feels so unbearably ashamed that he physically can’t say anything about it. He knows that he needs to get over it so he can apologize to Timmy properly. And Dick will, soon. He has no idea how he can make it better though, especially with the addition of Dami’s abuse of Timmy.

It’s like none of his little brothers feel like they belong. Dick doesn’t feel like he does, but he did once. He had parents that loved him very much, animals to play with and tend to, and a whole circus worth of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Dick isn’t ready to let that safety blanket go and get completely involved in a new try at what he had. But his little brothers never felt what it means to be a part of a family.

With Jay, Dick didn’t even realize the problem, but he tried to be better for Timmy and Dami. Dick thought he had succeeded, but… Everybody says he made good progress with Dami, but Dick did it at the cost of his relationship with Timmy, who is as closed off as in the beginning. And Timmy has good reasons.

There has to be a better way.

Strangely enough, the thing that gives him hope is Jay’s interference. No, Dick doesn’t agree with Bruce: Jay didn’t do that just because he wanted to mess with Bruce, though that’s probably one of the reasons. Dick thinks a part of it must’ve been Jay’s disapproval at Dami getting hurt.

Also, Dick thinks Timmy and Jay sorted things out because after Dami got the Robin mantle, Tim disappeared for a bit and came back with a whole slew of Red Hood favors that Tim kept calling in when he thought nobody was paying attention.  

So, the status of the Batfamily is as messed up as ever.

Bruce is screwed and Dick has so many things to say to that, he doesn’t even know where to begin addressing.

Dami is humiliated by the press that intrudes on his privacy and the persistent thought that it was his fault that this got out. It wasn’t. Dick hasn’t given up on telling him so, but he doesn’t think he’s helping any.

Timmy forgoes sleep until he hallucinates, works himself to the bone like Dick used to, keeps getting his hands dirty, doesn’t let himself be seen by anybody, and talks with Jay, a man who wishes he didn’t exist and has made that obvious.  Jay, who could have made that a done deal, who could have killed him if not for his sadistic streak, and who was—by anybody’s guess—either psychotic, a psychopath, or both. And Dick is optimistic about how their relationship develops.

Jay is lost to the Bats as a whole and Dick doesn’t even know where to begin to get him back. Do they even have a “back” to get to? Dick and Bruce upset with Jay caught in the middle is the best of what Dick remembers. As for the rest… Guns, and rage on both sides.

And Dick… Dick is scared, sad, ashamed, angry, humiliated, but ultimately hopeful.

Always hopeful.

“Hi, Red Robin,” Dick says cheerily, landing neatly at the edge of the harbor. “How’s your night?”

Timmy looks around at the old building that had blown off. “Boring,” he says absently.

“Other than checking for chemicals there’s nothing we can do here,” Dick offers with an easy smile. “You might actually get three hours of sleep today.”

Their chemical detection sensors go off and Timmy gives him a look.

Shrugging, Dick presses a button to bring up the information. “Oh.” Fear gas, Knock-knock poison in gas form, and some asbestos from the old building being blown up. “Masks,” he says and ignores how much like his father and Bruce he sounds. The thought brings up mixed feelings and Dick has to concentrate.

“Already on,” Timmy says. “What happened here? Oracle?”

_“There were two bodies. It looks like they were having an altercation when the bomb exploded. Sending satellite infrared footage now,”_ Babs reports and their portable consoles ping. _“One was pushed in the river and the other is eleven feet to your left. Both are dead.”_

“And, at least, one was poisoned,” Timmy piped up. “What do you want to bet that this a lot bigger than we imagine?”

Dick doesn’t answer. He’s a few feet off Babs’s location, but he knows what he’s seeing. “Red Robin.”

“Great,” Timmy says dryly, recognizing Dick’s tone for the warning that it is. “What is it?”

Dick gives it a little push with his boot.

Timmy’s indrawn breath is loud. “Is that—”   

“It might be.”

_“What is it?”_ Babs asks tersely.

“It might be Joker’s head,” Dick says neutrally.

There is silence for a second, before a confused Babs asks, _“Which joker?”_

“Ah,” Dick turns to Timmy.

_“The Joker?!”_ Babs sounds off. _“It—I—It can’t—”_ A deep indrawn breath is heard _. “I’ll analyze the footage. You should probably find the rest and somebody should let Batman know. I’ll coordinate with Agent A. We have to confirm it.”_

They remain where they are for a few more seconds.

“What do you think happened?” Timmy asks.

Dick hasn’t recovered yet, so he just shakes his head.

“We better get to it then.”

Dick nods and he feels more in control. “Should we touch it before B gets here?”

_“I wouldn’t,”_ Babs says. _“Joker was taken out of Arkham at noon today. He was drugged and carried off by guards, so it might be an inside job.”_

“Increases the chance that it is Joker,” Timmy says absently. “But the guards… I think they weren’t with whoever’s head that was.” He tilts his head to the side. “There are wires coming out of his torso.”

Dick frowns. He steps hurriedly over the remains of a cage, hurrying too much to go around it. “Is that a bomb?”

“No, I don’t think so. There are no explosives.”

Dick’s mind immediately goes to the Knock-knock gas. “Check for chemicals.”

“The gas,” Timmy says, nodding.

Just as he shifts another step, Dick sees shards. Red ones. Familiar ones. He kneels next to them.

“Positive for Knock-knock gas,” Timmy says. “But not the Fear gas, though there are traces.”

“It’s here.” Dick swallows. “The point of origin is Red Hood’s helmet.”

Timmy’s head snaps up. He gets out his phone and calls somebody. Then he messages them. It doesn’t take a genius to guess who that somebody is, the lack of answer, and the impact that has on Timmy.

But Dick pushes down his own worries. “What do we think happened?” It’s too early to tell. As far as they know, the helmet was left here some other time and Joker’s not even dead.

“Red Hood’s hiding because he killed Joker.” It’s not Timmy that says that, it’s Bruce.

“The math doesn’t add up,” Dami says, looking around.

Timmy freezes, but he gives a reluctant nod. “There was somebody else with the person who looks like Joker.”

“Hm.” Bruce contemplates the site. “You think that Joker isn’t dead and this is his plan.” He rubs on his chin. “Possible.”

“Why the Red Hood helmet?” Dick asks. “To lure us somewhere or does Joker actually have Red Hood?”

_“GCPD and GCFD deployed,”_ Babs reports. _“That second person could have survived; their temperature could have been hidden by the water.”_

“Where Killer Croc awaits,” Dami says.

Timmy bites his lip. “If they were fast enough or prepared—Having a boat around, for example. They could have made it.”

_“No boat,”_ Babs cuts in.

“Still,” Dick says, an uneasy feeling unfurling in his stomach.

“Joker could have done it.” Bruce declares.

That makes Dick’s head snap towards him and Dami snort.

“You know you just implied that Red Hood is too stupid to have been able to pull this off, right?” Timmy shakes his head. “Let’s get the body out of here.”

*

“It’s Joker’s body,” Bruce declares.

Dick is and isn’t surprised. He worries about Jay. The whole Joker involvement made things complicated and Dick feels like they should have been more concentered with Jay’s fate than with Joker. Yeah, Dick has trouble fully realizing that somebody killed Joker, but, realistically speaking, it had to happen at some point.

The problem is that there is no trace of Jay. Dick left the others to their Joker issue and focused on Jay. No dice. There is other no evidence of him anywhere, besides the helmet shards, and there’s no proof of life either.

And they all know Jay was there. Not even at some point. He wouldn’t have left until he was sure that Joker was dead.

Timmy exhales and Dick understands. While he was looking for proof, Timmy already reached the conclusion that the only way Jay could have survived was if he was captured by Joker. That is a sad fact in and of itself, but when you add the evidence that didn’t happen because there was Joker, forever cooling his heels in the Cave’s fridge, it’s downright tragic.

Bruce cut Jay out a long time ago, or it seems that way and Bruce is comfortable with them thinking that. Dami doesn’t know Jay and doesn’t have any affection for him, least of all in the aftermath of the abuse story breaking. Babs has already asked for a timeout once there was nothing more to do, not that anybody could blame her. And Alfie is nowhere to be found. If somebody asks him about his whereabouts, he would probably blame something that needed dusting, but Dick is sure that it’s excruciating for Alfie to think that Jay might be dead again.

Dick wants to hit something. There’s tension always present, buzzing under his skin. He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to go somewhere high enough that no one would even dream of coming to him and where he can do his damnest to forget everything that’s going on. But most of all, he wants somebody to tell him it’s a giant misunderstanding.

That doesn’t happen and he does none of it. With a smile plastered on, he tries to convince Timmy to sleep, Dami to check on dinner, and Bruce to blink. He still has people that he needs to take care of, and, like Jay would be the first person say, Dick never did that great with Jay in the first place.

“We should drag the—” Timmy sighs. “Killer Croc is still out there. It’s unlikely that we would find anything. We still should but we may never find out what happened,” Timmy murmurs and hides his face into his hands. “We may never find out what happened.” He’s been saying the same thing for two hours now, with increased desperation. This time, the words are said with underlying resignation. He’s not quite ready to give up, but he’s not too far off.

“It a good idea, just in ca—”

Dick is interrupted by Dami jumping down the stairs.

_“Nightliner!”_ Dami shouts. “Turn on _Nightliner_!”

“Vale?” Dick asks while Bruce types to get the local broadcast.

Dami doesn’t answer, just glances at Dick and then focuses on the screen.

The image is clear but difficult to process. There is Joker, laughing his head off. He is twirling a crowbar. There is Jay. In the cage that Dick stepped over, with his hands bound, struggling to get free in the too-small space. And there is gas coming out of the vents of the helmet. Putrid green, probably Scarecrow’s brew.

What the—

The cage is hanging by a chain in the ceiling. Jay’s increasingly desperate movements make it sway, then fall. The bars burst open on impact. His bounds get sheared off. Jay groans, but is able to wrestle his helmet off.

It’s too late.

Of course, it’s too late. He inhaled the gas. If not before, certainly after the cage fell. It would have been involuntary. A reflex. But Jay doesn’t scream, doesn’t fight, doesn’t faint. He huddles back into the mangled bars. Trembles, breathes, and makes himself small.

All the while, Joker’s cackles and the steady rhythm the crowbar hitting his rings are much too loud.

Dick shivers and clenches his fists. _“It already happened,”_ he tells himself. Predictably, it doesn’t help.

_“My, my,”_ a breathy voice says. _“That’s disappointing. I expected more screaming.”_

Jay just trembles and huddles into a smaller ball.

Domino is still on but by the angle of Jay’s face, he’s obviously watching Joker. The gas works. His breaths are forcefully calm, like the only thing standing between him and losing it are the clockwork inhales and exhales.

Joker stops laughing and smirks. In a flash, he’s next to Jay, crowbar lifted. But Jay’s aware of his surroundings. It just takes a roll and he’s out of striking range. Joker’s cackles follow him, but the man stays put.

“He’s not hallucinating,” Timmy observes in a weirdly neutral tone.

Dami snorts. “Yes, that certainly going to save him.”

“Dami!” Dick didn’t mean to snap. “Sorry.”

Dami nods and stays silent.

“He doesn’t need to hallucinate,” Bruce observes. It’s so fucking bland that, if Dick didn’t see the realization and shock behind it, he would have exploded. “His biggest fear is in the room with him. The reality, in this case, beats everything his mind might conjure up.”

On second thought, Dick still might flip a table, or punch Bruce, or scream at the injustice. It would make Dick feel better. But he doesn’t.

The footage continues.

_“Joker, I expected better of you,”_ the voice says chidingly.

_“Well, what can little ol’ me do?”_ Joker asks. He gestures dramatically with his hand. _“Even Brawny Robin was trained by the Bat. The muscles remember, you know? They don’t need brains.”_

Jay flinches.

_“Which can only be this one’s luck,”_ Joker cackles. He tries to hit Jay again, Jay rolls away, Joker doesn’t follow. _“Stupid, insignificant feather-brain. Hold still!”_

The attack repeats.

_“Attack me if you dare, you useless birdy!”_ Joker screams. _“You can’t, can you?”_ He misses and hits the wall. _“You aren’t allowed!”_ He lowers his voice, mockingly soothing. _“If you want to stay home. You.”_ Joker cackles and swings again. _“Don’t.”_ And again. _“Kill.”_ And again. _“The Joker.”_

Jay catches the crowbar. _“Yes,”_ he growls. _“He made it clear. To me. To everybody else. He chooses you.”_ He’s panting and sweating and wincing, but he’s still spitting words that he shouldn’t have the energy for, _“You’d be dead ten times over. Coward. The mighty Joker. Hiding behind the Bat!”_

Dick is lost. He watches as Jay rolls again and finds himself full of… everything. Rage, definitely, terrible guilt too, aching sadness at the situation, vindication that Jay landed a metaphorical blow with his words, crushing concern, again for Jay, but most of all a strong feeling of injustice.

Jay doesn’t deserve this. He was with Bruce about two years, if that, and Dick would have been the first to say that most of that consisted of Bruce trying to “convince” Jay and the teachings only sort of taking. Jay liked the fact that he had a roof over his head, food and drink, that he could go to school and read, that he was learning how to cook and maybe saving people who went through a similarly tough time. He also wanted to make the bad guys pay.   

Bruce had taken in a kid off the streets and impressed on him the fact that Jay could think like him or else.

Jay wasn’t allowed his own opinion. His own safety was dependent on virtually turning a blind eye on things that he knew from experience precisely how traumatic they could be. And when he came back, he wasn’t allowed to defend his own life and was forced to live in fear, or else he would be run out of town.

How can a person—a victim, that was abused time and time again—handle the permission to investigate their abusers or similar abusers’ crimes? Permission to hunt them? Permission to badly beat them up?

_But not too hard._

How can one stop at that point?

Oh, and always be on the lookout because they _will come back._

Dick shivers, mind flooding with realizations.

_“Incompetent Robin!”_ Joker yells. _“How does it feel that you are the weakest? Huh? You’re pathetic. You know it too, but you hide from it. Don’t you? You hide in your little mind and pretend everything’s fine. ”_

When Dick thinks about it like that, Jay doesn’t owe Bruce shit. Bruce may have better than his parents but that doesn’t mean much. Jay had never received therapy for what he has been through and that is only the beginning of Bruce’s shortcomings. Dick knows about the desire to please that many kids that get adopted have. The testing of boundaries and the need to be reassured in their parents’ love after they do.

And yes, Dick had learned about it after he messed up with Damian and Tim. Dick did do a little of that, but not enough, and he acknowledges that. Bruce, unfortunately, acts like nothing happened, but that doesn’t mean he’s right.

_“How does it feel that you are here again?”_ Joker smirks. He giggles. _“At the mercy of my crowbar.”_ He twirls it as he speaks and swings, _“There’s no mommy to blame. Betrayed you, didn’t she?”_ The blow lands on Jay’s left shin with an ugly crunch of bone breaking. _“Or did she? Is it still betrayal when she’s just taking out the garbage?”_ Jay whimpers and rolls away while Joker continues to berate him, _“Ah, doesn’t matter. She’s not here. You’re the only one to blame. The only one stupid enough to fall for a trick.”_ Joker lifts the crowbar again. _“How does it_ feel _?”_

Jay grew into Red Hood. And maybe that’s not what Dick approves of, but Jay’s not asking him. Jay has his own motives, his own villains, his own failures. Something that Jay has gathered, the sum of his experiences. He coped as he could and continued to live up to his principles.

And now… Jay doesn’t deserve this.

Dick closes his eyes. Just for a bit. A second, then he’ll be watching again.

_Fuck._

When Dick opens his eyes, Jay’s flying at the Joker. The knee of the broken leg posed in a strike. He’s groaning and growling, like a cornered animal.

It’s the saddest thing Dick has ever seen.

And the most badass.

When the blow lands and Joker’s head snaps back, Dick wants to shout—encouragements, but also his fear and anguish.

There is nothing that can keep Jay down. Dick believes it. He hasn’t been a good student, but, eventually, Jay’s lessons stuck: he’s not unbeatable, but he keeps getting up.

That guarantees that he has to live with what broke him.

Jay has to find some way to heal himself, even from death or the Lazarus Pit. It’s easy in theory, incredible in reality. In-credible. As is not even in the world of Superman, magic, and people having lived centuries, no one would believe it. He moved on, looked elsewhere for support because they sure as shit didn’t provide it.

He survived. Maybe a bit more than that because he still protects. How, the ever-loving hell, does Jay keep caring about people? Controlling the drugs, minding the street kids, caring for the sex-workers—he did that. Does that. He’ll probably do it in the future too. Not perfectly, no. Not in some way that Dick understands it. A bit out of control, a lot bloody, but Jay does it.

How?

On the screen, Joker snarls.

_“Now, now,”_ the voice says. Its breathy quality is combined with the faint sounds of machines and Dick is scared for what is to come. _“You’ll get your chance, Joker, after I said my piece.”_

Joker doesn’t listen and lifts the crowbar again.

_“Joker,”_ the voice says calmly. But it’s a warning and one Joker heeds.

_Who is that guy?_

_“My name is Fred McCall,”_ the voice says.

_Thank you?_

Bruce is already typing on a secondary screen.

_“Familiar in any way? Fourteen years ago, you killed my brother,”_ McCall says. _“The doctors said an aneurysm burst when you punched him in the face and he hit the ground.”_

Dick stops breathing.

_“He got hit by Batman a couple of years earlier, you see, and was sent straight to jail. Nobody noticed when he said he had a headache,”_ McCall continues. _“I was a middle school teacher, but he had no other way to support his family. Getting in prison was no help with his career options. So he does what he does best and_ dies _for it and now I have to support both our families. After the maniac beats you to a pulp—_ able to dish it, but not take it, huh Robin?— _and you come back your_ healing downtime _with pants, you interfere again. The maniac is on the loose, so you’re put on small-time stuff.”_

“No,” Timmy whispers.

_“Like a robbery. And_ again! _You punch_ again! _It’s the same bad luck that my family had: I hit the wrong piece of glass in the wrong place and help arrives too late._ _I’m paralyzed,”_ McCall continues. _“And as I’m being fed by hand—but mostly not because this is Blackgate and they are_ so forgetful _—I realize that I want to destroy the maniac, Batman, and, most of all,_ you _. After all, when I lay for hours in my piss, with my shit stinking up my nose so badly that I want to die, the thought of you suffering is one of the few pleasurable ones I’ve got left.”_

Dick feels dizzy, his knees are suddenly weak, so he sits down where he is. The floor is cold. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does. It’s all his fault.

_“I’ve got nothing to lose,”_ McCall says. He’s explaining himself or gloating and it makes Dick sick. _“I want to die, I welcome it, but if I don’t I’ll still have your whimpers to think about.”_

_“Wait,”_ Joker says, his hand in a dramatic ‘stop’ gesture. _“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. Fourteen years ago? That was when he first showed up. Thereabouts, give or take a year,_ approximate _. Right? And when you’re saying ‘pants,’ are you talking about—”_

Joker is interrupted in his description of booty shorts using body language, which is as disturbing as alarming, by Jay saying, _“Shut up.”_

It’s alarming because, although the people of Gotham might have their doubts, they do not know how many Robins there were. If they find out, that’s one more element to tie the Waynes to it. Damn it, and it wasn’t even Jay. Any of it. That was Dick, responsible for McCall’s brother, it had to be. Jay was too young fourteen years ago. And it was Tim that got caught in the middle in the aftermath.

_“Shut_ the fuck _up!”_ Jay shouts. _“Just shut up.”_

After a nearly imperceptible pause, Joker cackles. _“That’s precious.”_ He laughs so hard that he ends up putting his hands on his knees. _“You’re the best joke I’ve heard of in a long time,”_ he tells Jay while wiping tears away. _“Too bad you’re going to have to die, birdie, you’re funny.”_

But Joker doesn’t press the matter. He understands what Jay’s doing. What he’s conveying. And Joker doesn’t want the whole world to be that much closer to finding out who Batman is, so he goes along.

Now, his motives are his own. Dick could take a guess, he could assume that Joker is territorial or that there is some truth in Jay’s description of Joker needing Batman’s protection. Those are reasons Joker might have and even though Dick will never know for sure, he’s content with them.

Instead, Dick doesn’t understand Jay’s reasons.

Why protect Tim? Because Jay’s feeling bad for attacking and almost killing him? Possibly. But why protect Dick and Bruce? Wasn’t Jay the one that started this whole child abuse mess in the press? The only reason Damian is still with them is Bruce’s pull.

Maybe Jay cares in his own way. It’s his perspective, and Dick just established he doesn’t know anything about it. He just wrote it off as bad and didn’t bother to find out more about it, but what if there was something that was worth a second look?

After all, it seems a bit presumptuous to dismiss your brother’s entire life experience.

When Dick thinks about it like that, it sounds really bad. It sounds too close to abuse for comfort. Is that how Jay sees it? Is that the reason he encouraged people to go to the media?

That’s not possible. There is nothing to those allegations. At most, Jay’s an overprotective brother.  

Right?

But Dick stops thinking about it when Joker swings toward a terrified Jay again.

Damn, how could this happen again?

Dick consciously doesn’t think the aftermath, but he can’t help the foreboding feeling.

Jay catches the crowbar. _“Do you hear that?”_ He tilts his head toward Joker.  

_“Ah, that will be the timer,”_ McCall says cheerfully. _“Ready to blow up a couple of places you know very well. The shelter. The building you set up for the whores. The kindergarten you took under your wing. The public school. The newly installed bus stops which you protect so ardently. In short all sorts of good, important places.”_

Joker gives one of his infuriating cackles.

_“Now, though, I must warn you.”_ McCall’s voice takes a paternal tone and Dick grinds his teeth. _“If you do anything to get to the timer, yes, you’ll have managed to kill Joker and have thus succeeded in rousing Batman’s ire, but you won’t have time to care. It’s you or the people under your protection, Robin. You or them.”_

“The Knock-knock gas,” Timmy whispers.

Dami’s head snaps to Timmy. Dick can read Dami’s horrified realization on his face. It’s easy, even. The same thing is on Timmy and Dick’s faces. Bruce, though, is blank. Too blank.  And Dick doesn’t even want to imagine what’s on Alfie’s. 

_“Choose carefully,”_ McCall says cheerfully.

Jay seems confused. _“I-is this a joke?”_

Joker cackles harder.

In one smooth movement, Jay changes his grip on the crowbar and tugs it out of Joker’s grip. Jay swings the makeshift weapon. It cracks on Joker’s temple. He goes down, unconscious or dead. Changing his grip again, Jay flips Joker’s clothes out of the way and uses the crowbar to rip through the stitches on Joker’s belly. Blood spurts everywhere. And the gas erupts.

There wasn’t ever a choice. Not really. Not for Jay.

Jay scoots a little distance away. His helmet is in pieces. He tilts his head down to look at his clothes and at Joker’s, but there isn’t enough time to make a useable mask out of them. The timer is at one minute and that’s all Dick sees through the gas. Jay needs to get closer and he needs to do it immediately.

So, Jay does. He holds his breath but the Knock-knock gas doesn’t work like that. It disperses fairly easily timewise, but it does a lot of harm. Named after the sounds that one makes when they’re at Death door asking to come in, the Knock-knock gas crawls into the airways and causes them to constrict. There’s no cure for it, but the ingredients are very rare. Apparently, not rare enough.

Jay’s going to die. Joker as well. And McCall is past being afraid of consequences.

_Fuck!_

They watch in silence as Jay struggles to disarm the bombs with a timer and decreasing amounts of air. It’s going. Jay’s smart. He has had training and… There have been no explosions so it wasn’t real or it was a dud, at worst.

To die for a lie.

If Dick could, he would swap places with Jay in a second. He’d take Jay’s fear and his pain and his desperation. Dick would make sure Alfie has Jay in a blanket burrito with some Neapolitan ice cream or a chili dog or maybe simple chicken soup. If Dick could, nothing bad would ever happen to his brother.

But Dick can’t and, instead, Dick has to watch Jay successfully stop the timer. As Jay rises unsteadily, his mouth gasping for air, Dick has to stay there and hear McCall say that there is another bomb in the building. That by disarming the device, Jay started another. That Jay has seconds.

And Jay tries. He walks slowly out of the building. Tries the door and finds it locked. Drops down. Gets the lock picks out. He opens it. Crawls halfway out. And blows up.

The camera is down and Dick finds that, through the tears and the sheer devastation he feels, a savage sense of triumph makes its way out. Dick bears his teeth. His lips hurt with the strength of his grin.

Jay _never_ gave up.

*

In the aftermath, there is a lot of time spent in silence. Bruce finds McCall and there’s nothing more to do to him. He got financed by two of the small-time drug bosses that, by the time the Bats found out, had already opened their mouths and died for it: one of them killed by Red Hood’s people and the other by his own gang for calling unwanted attention to them.

The plan was so simple as to almost be called stupid.

A Blackgate guard sneaked McCall in a laptop. She never thought twice about it. McCall wasn’t considered a threat.

He also bought off some dime-a-dozen orderlies that have such a bad turnover rate in Arkham. They kidnapped Joker. One of the orderlies could follow simple instructions and, with the internet, the bombs were put together. The police confirmed their presence and, though they weren’t much, they would have exploded nonetheless.

Everybody and their mother can get their hands on fear gas in Gotham. Scarecrow was generous, surprisingly willing to share. People are adding all sorts of stuff to already existing formulas. The bosses got it somehow.

Jay was caught as he saved a kid pushed off a building by one of the bosses. The other was waiting on the closest roof. It was an easy shot just as Jay was landing, and a blur caught on a camera that Babs found two days after the video was shown. A camera out of thousands. A blur that could be anything without context. The kid was still sobbing when the Bats found him.

The Knock-knock canister was lost by Blackmask and a lucky find by somebody who didn’t know what it was. It was sold cheap. McCall never knew what type of gas it contained.

Murder on a budget. 

The city is in shock. Red Hood’s people suddenly find themselves avenging their leader, forced to defend themselves from other gangs, and… the city’s saviors. Lost kids would now go to Hood’s dealers instead of police officers. Hungry teenagers would ask for help. Battered spouses would plead for shelter. But Jay chose well his people and they are hanging in there.

It’s as if once Gotham found out that Jay used to be a Robin, everything about him made sense and he was chucked in the dependable pile. Not even the Bats are there because they are few and hard to find, but everybody knows where the drug dealers are. It’s common knowledge in Gotham. They are kind of an illegal police department, that no one holds to principles or ideals other than those already hammered in by Jay.

There are changes in the family too, obvious and less so. In a truly miraculous move, Bruce agrees to go to counseling. That’s group and one-on-one sessions. He admits that he needs help raising his children.

Timmy has made fourteen emergency plans about it.

Another change is that uncomfortable pauses abound over the course of the next few months.  They aren’t used to talking to each other and, since their personal tragedy has paralyzed the city, there’s not much else to do. The ghost of Jay follows them around every time they go outside. This time, they kind of have to talk. The only problem is that they’re very bad at it.

*

“Where’s the white streak in his hair?” Dami asks absently as he watches the tape again. 

Timmy is reading some reports on gang activity, but he spears a second to answer. “He dyes his hair.” He stops. “Dyed his hair.”

Insert pause.

*

“The video’s online,” Timmy announces.

“Oh dear, I forgot the macaroons!” Alfie says loudly and bangs into an armchair in his hurry to leave the room.

Pause.

*

Dami’s thoughtfully looking out the window. “I sound like the Joker.”

“No.” Dick is vehement. “You don’t.”

“That is kind of you,” Dami says as he leaves the room.

Left alone in the room, Dick still feels the uncomfortable pause settling like a well-worn blanket.

*

“Jason had about ten seconds from the time he got shot with the tranquilizer to when he couldn’t speak,” Babs says.

Bruce isn’t listening.

“In that time he put the kid down, but he could still talk,” Babs continues.

Bruce may not be listening, Dick is and he has no idea where Babs is going with this.

“If he had me on comms, we would have known,” Babs finishes.

“He didn’t,” Bruce responds. “He couldn’t trust you. You weren’t on his side. I wasn’t on his side. He got used to doing things without us. I took in a kid who had nothing and expected him to be more stable than me. This is on me. He is my biggest failure. I never should have taken him in.”

Dick exchanges horrified glances with Babs. Clearly, therapy is doing something for Bruce, but that was unsettling. Besides coming from left field and being what for Bruce constitutes as throwing up his feelings all over the place, Dick gets what Bruce’s trying to say but it’s badly phrased. As it is now, it sounds like Jay wasn’t worth saving and that’s bullshit. Oh, and it reduces Jason’s entire existence to playing a recurring role in the story of Bruce’s life.

How bad a communicator can Bruce be? Batman seems to do well with victims, but this… Really?! Therapy needs to step it up. How hard is it to say, ‘I treated him badly,’ ‘I could have been a better parent,’ or even ‘I owe him an apology’? Where the fuck is the resemblance between that and ‘he’s my biggest failure’?

A truly uncomfortable pause follows.

*

“I didn’t even remember McCall,” Timmy says from the pile of gang activity reports that he’s always buried in these days. “His picture doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Timmy, you didn’t kill his brother.” Dick wipes a hand down his face. “It’s not your fault.”

“But he was dealing with the loss of his brother.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

This time the pause it’s more of an uncomfortable standoff.

*

And worse are Dick’s own thoughts because how could he? How could Dick have presumed that Jay knew that the Bats were actually a family when it was his death that got Dick up off his ass and trying to make it happen? How could Dick have overlooked his brother’s needs so completely? How could Dick not have known that they’re forcing Jay to confront and relieve his greatest fear every time they fail to contain the Joker? How could Dick have not realized that they are making Jay choose between his home and his safety?

*

Almost two months have passed since… well, and things are coming to a head for Jay’s people. The Gotham Elite is at a garden rooftop luncheon party. Dick is here because Bruce thinks that Timmy and Dami would inevitably try to fling themselves off the building. To be fair, it’s tempting.

What Bruce didn’t expect is that everybody would feel the desire.

As of two minutes ago, armed men came in and asked everybody to point fingers at Jay’s people. Of course, they immediately did. The head henchman said that they’re going to kill them all as a message: if Hood’s people can be gotten to here, then they can’t be that strong.

Dick was expecting this. It’s a wonder it took so long. Gotham doesn’t do sentimentality, but in Jay’s case they did and Jay’s people caught a break. It wasn’t going to last.

“What’s your name?” Ty asks as he delicately makes his way out of the huddle of Jay’s people. They are flinty-eyed and remote, obviously having expected something like this too.  

“I’m the man with the gun.”

Ty pouts delicately. “Can I call you George?” Beautiful, petite Ty, with his big eyes and sweet words.

“Weren’t you listening?” The man scoffs. “You won’t get to call me anything.”

“I’m calling you George,” Ty announces, ignoring the man. He throws one of those looks that makes everybody jealous of Jay—well, of Hood—because it’s a well-known fact that Ty doesn’t do anybody, but he was a prostitute and that’s all the Gotham Elite needs for their fantasies.

They clearly haven’t seen Jay in mother-hen mode. Not that Dick has seen it either, but Timmy gets a bit starry-eyed every time he talks about it. Apparently, it’s a quick death to any sexual thoughts, but it gets everybody within range fed, and warm, and safe. Dick wishes he’d seen it for himself.

“Georgie,” Ty says, swaying the tiniest bit hypnotically. “What are you doing here?”

Okay, so Ty is trying to distract the ma—Georgie. That’s useful only if he has a plan to do something with that distraction. Dick doesn’t know what Ty’s thinking, but Dick is signing to his brothers. They must move quickly because even Ty can’t stall forever.  

“Weren’t you listening?” Georgie snaps.

“Oh.” Ty lifts a hand in an elegant gesture. He tilts it from left to right delicately. “I thought you might reconsider.”

Georgie sneers. “Because Hood had pretty young whores?”

A hand comes to touch Ty’s chest and he bites his glossy lips attractively. “A compliment. Darling”—he elongates the ‘a’—“nobody has called me young in so long.”

The nails are painted the exact pale shade as his lipstick. Ty’s everything is thought out to the very last detail. It’s done to help create the illusion of a powerless damsel and Dick is willing to bet that Ty’s anything but that. Firstly, none of Jay’s people are. They grew up hard and that gave them iron spines. And secondly, Ty is a production. True to himself and, at the same time, not. He’s putting on a show and it’s a lesson that Dick learned from a young age. It’s also the reason he stays away from Ty despite everything they have in common.     

Georgie blinks stupidly. Several people do too. The Ty effect in action.

“Now.” Ty bats his eyelashes as he takes a deliberate step to the left. “Why don’t you—”

Georgie’s head is gone.

Dick stills for a second. He hadn’t noticed Ty moving that much, but he definitely wasn’t surrounded by Jay’s people now. Even if the step Ty took brought him closer, he’s still about three feet away. He was clearly expecting… Was that a shot? It was.

Ty was expecting Georgie to be beheaded by a shot and took care not to have people in the way.

That means…

“It’s so difficult to anticipate blood spatter,” Ty coos at a drop of blood on his tan silk shirt. He lifts his head and there’s a smirk playing on his lips. “Thanks, Red.”

Dick called it. That’s the fucking blade hidden in all the velvet. Ty’s is one of Hood’s people, through and through.

“Stop complaining,” a voice shouts. “I’ll buy you another.”

As Dick swings around to see the owner of the voice he tells himself, once again: Jay never gives up. He survives. Jay may be beaten, but he always gets back up.

_How, though?_

And sure enough, on a nearby roof, red domino, smirk, and don’t-give-a-fuck pose. Sure, the haircut is new—an undercut with the longer part on top of his head white. But that’s him. That’s Dick’s Little Wing. His brother.

Jaybird.

“And a kiss,” Ty shouts back somehow managing not to shatter the aura of harmlessness that he exudes. “For the trauma.”

Jay blows him one, waves, jumps, and he’s gone.

Dick is left taking a deep breath. The gunmen have run when Red Hood took their leaders’ head. Apparently, Red Hood is, again, a scary motherfucker. And Dick has his second chance.

“Is your brother truly alive?” Kantore asks curiously.

“What.”

*

Later that evening Dick has no idea what’s going on around him. He’s eating something and people are talking around him, but he can’t think past that exchange. It unfurls with heart-stopping clarity in his mind’s eye.

_“Is your brother truly alive?” Kantore asks curiously._

_“What.”_

_Kantore has an amused glimmer in her eyes. “Damian,” she finally says. “He’s impersonating a statue. What did you think I meant?” And with one more sly smile, she goes to commiserate with Ty over the loss of his shirt._

Dick can’t see a way around it. He’s not dumb and he’s beginning to think that, contrary to his first opinion, neither is Kantore. She clearly knows something, and, no matter how much he’d like to say she _thinks_ she knows something, the way her eyes sharpened for that one second, makes him believe she is on to him. And Jay. And possibly the Bats in general.

In a bewildering turn of events, Dick finds himself missing the Kantore he has in his mind—kind of ditzy, soft brown hair, dull blue eyes. It’s simple, easy to understand. And, though he has no doubt that some of Gotham Elite is exactly as dumb as they appear, it makes a lot of sense that most of them aren’t. They live here, after all, under constant threat of villains in the city that nobody else wants to even visit. That says something about them.

Dick is still thinking about the problem when the doorbell rings. He freezes. The _doorbell_ rings. First of all, they don’t have a doorbell. And second, that would mean that whoever it is passed the gate without them knowing.

“Alfred, let me,” Bruce says.

“Nonsense, Master Bruce,” Alfie responds loftily as he walks to the door. “Why would you open the door when you have a perfectly capable butler?”

Dick blinks. “Because the nonexistent doorbell rang?”

“Ah, that.” Alfie smiles.

“You know who it is.” Timmy narrows his eyes. “And you know they won’t hurt you.”

Alfie gives them an indulgent look. “The sense of humor is familiar.”

The sense of hum—Jay!

Reaching the door, Alfie opens it. “It’s good to see you alive, Master Jason.”

“Do you know _everything_?” Jay asks and gives Alfie a quick hug. “Nice to see you too, Alfie.”

In two steps, Dick is there too. Dami and Timmy are one step behind. And Bruce has used his superior height to reach the door first.

Jay has moved back out of striking range.

“You’re all here,” Jason says drolly. “Good. Now, I thought you might want some answers. I’m feeling generous.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “You don’t want us to search for you.”

“That too.”

“That more.” Dami sneers and then blinks. “My English used to be perfect,” he grumbles mournfully.

Jay winks.

“You killed somebody,” Bruce begins and, when there’s no reaction from Jay, Bruce crosses his arms.

“That was so not a question,” Jay protests. “But yes, I did. Big bird, baby bird, and confused bird here saw me.”

“Which is which?” Dami asks, probably sensing he might be the confused bird. Jay just looks at him. To be fair, the question didn’t help. Dami blows out a breath and his eyebrow twitches. “Todd.”

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Dick says because he is and nobody has said it yet. “Come in.”

Jay takes another step back. “I don’t think so.”

“How did you make it?” Timmy asks.

“I always do, but this time a friend helped,” Jay says.

Bruce still hasn’t let his arms down. “What friend and what did it take?”

“Waylon.” Jay grins and it’s all teeth. “He did it because we’re friends and that’s what you _do_ when you see your friend _floating_ through the water.” His tone is odd.

Bruce audibly grinds his teeth.

“How do you always do?” Dami asks and it takes a moment for Dick to figure out what Dami’s saying. He seems to be thrown off by Jay in a way that’s mostly amusing. Dami looks like he has second thoughts about the question, his phrasing, and the fact that nobody has invented an earth-swallowing machine, but then takes a deep breath and says, “You know what I mean.”

Jay snickers. “It always happens—I die, some time passes, I come back to life.”

“But it always happened twice, right?” Dick frowns. “How do you—Jay, it only happened twice.” He doesn’t like the shit eating grin on Jay’s face. “Right?

With aching slowness that does little to hide impending doom, Jay blinks and his eyes land on Bruce. “Don’t worry kids, your father has not successfully killed me.” He smirks and Bruce is so rigid he might snap. “On account of me not staying dead so I’d do my best not to do something he doesn’t approve of. Hypocrite slit my throat and he still has the balls to _judge_ me on the people _I’ve_ killed.”

What.

“You were going to kill Joker,” Bruce says through gritted teeth.

Jay spreads his arms. “Payback.”

“It’s not pay—”

But Jay interrupts Bruce. “He killed me, I would have killed him. Payback.”

Bruce doesn’t relent. “You did end up killing him.”

“Yes,” Jay says, a satisfied expression spilling onto his face. “Yes, I did.”

“If you kill—”  

Jay makes an exasperated sound, cutting off Bruce again. “If you kill a murderer, it leaves a murderer behind. Doesn’t quite add up when you kill dozens, does it? If you kill, you let them win. I’m not interested in playing games with them, I’m interested in stopping them. If you kill, you can’t stop. Yes, you can. When you’re not doing it for pleasure or laziness, it’s not that hard, Bruce.”

There’s a pause and then Bruce accuses, “You’ll kill McCall.”

“No.” Jay lifts his chin. “I learned my lesson with you knowing in advance.”

“You already did it.” Bruce takes a deep breath. “Jason, that is not—”

“What you taught me?” Jay’s laugh sounds forced. “It sure isn’t.”

“That is not what I wanted for you,” Bruce finishes.

There’s no talk of failure and not taking Jay in, so, considering the alternative, it’s not half bad.

Jay gazes at him in silence. “What use is that to me?” he finally asks. “What use is that now?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce says quietly, voice cracking on the words.

But then there’s that.

Jay nods. “Yeah, well… if you don’t have any more questions, I’ll go.”

“Why did you go to the press?” Dami asks.

“Because the city knows about the Bat and they aren’t going to do anything to their precious savior no matter how many kids end up being used as cannon fodder.” Jay’s definitely pissed, but he somehow keeps a calm tone. “I decided he needed a reality check. Those people, your teacher, Vicky, are the first ones willing to do it without endangering you. Maybe now he won’t be tempted to show his judgyness towards any Bird with a batarang next time,” he says evenly and it’s no less brutal for it. “Consider this an intervention.” He climbs down the stairs, reaching his bike.

Dick _definitely_ has to have a talk with Bruce, but in Dick’s ears desperate gasps for air still echo and he has to keep focusing on what’s important right now.

“Jay!” Dick shouts. “People expect their interventions to work.” He presses his point when Jay stills. “Just, talk to us from time to time. We’ll tell you how Bruce is doing, maybe catch up. It’ll be…”—Dick can’t for the life of him think of a word—“informative.” He winces.

“Seriously?!” Jay’s lifted eyebrow shows nothing but derision. “Informative?”

“I couldn’t think of anything else, okay?” And Dick is not about to waste the chance to know his brother. “So yup, informative, deal with it.”

“Okay, Dick,” Jay chuckles. “Fine.” He shakes his head and puts on his helmet. “Informative.” He starts his bike and he’s gone.

“We have to reinstall all the deactivated security,” Timmy says amusedly as he watches Jay leave.

Dami looks exasperated. “Do we even know what he did?”

It’ll be a lot of work. Jay is the burn it to ground type, but he’s also the kind that holds hope even if there’s none left. And Dick is not talking about the security, even though it’ll be an adventure to see what Jay did to it, Dick is talking about their relationship. He doesn’t think he’ll ever approve of beheading people but Timmy and Jay reached some sort of truce and Jay accepted to talk, so that tells Dick that there’s still a chance. It’ll be hard, for the whole family, but…

Well.

_No way out, but through._

  

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you want to comment (or just talk to me) you can do it here or on my [tumblr](http://e-alexandrescu.tumblr.com/).


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